May 14, 2012
...But we'll never turn back
Mike Klonsky,
Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog, May 14, 2012.
We've been 'buked and we've been scorned,
We've been talked about sure's you're born
But we'll never turn back
No, we'll never turn back
...because today is election day in Moncton - always my favorite day of the year!
The ivory tower is showing cracks
Daniel Woolf,
Ottawa Citizen, May 14, 2012.
With protests in the street in Montreal, rising student loan debts, and increasing government austerity, the university is under more pressure than ever to do the impossible: deliver a quality education to all at a price that will neither bankrupt students nor bankrupt nations. "Universities will inevitably adapt and modify, as they have for the past 800 years, because they will have to do so to survive. The trick will be to do so without destroying all the good things they have achieved for Canadians, and the world, over the last half century."
The nature of digital influence
Ryan Tracey,
E-Learning provocateur, May 14, 2012.
Personally I don't hold much truck for the idea of hit counts and the like being equated with 'influence'. Still, this is a decent post describing the concept. writes, "I find digital influence intriguing because of its scalability. For example, an expert from Shanghai could influence many thousands of practitioners in China, but is he or she influential in the Asia-Pacific region? Or is the spirit of lists like Bob’s meant to highlight people who are influential across the region? Social media can facilitate that." How does one increase influence? Tracey identifies three major ways:
1. Intend to change other people’s behaviour.
2. Leverage social media to expand your sphere of influence.
3. Produce original content."
Turnitin: 10 types of unoriginal work #turnitin #edtech Source / Read more: Turnitin: 10 types of unoriginal work
David Hopkinds,
eLearning Blog Dont Waste Your Time, May 14, 2012.
Cute graphic of 20 types of unoriginal content created by TurnItIn. "From a survey of nearly 900 educators (Plagiarism Today) Turnitin are trying to 'understand what kinds of plagiarism were the most common in academia and, equally importantly, which were viewed as being the most problematic.'" I'd show you the graphic here but I've somehow broken my image upload script (*sigh*).
How Bottlenose Can Help Turn Twitter into a High Signal Channel
Brian Kelly,
UK Web Focus, May 14, 2012.
Bottlenose is an application that will convert Twitter into a personalized dashboard and newspaper. "The Bottlenose name was inspired by the dolphin, which is reflected in its primary feature known as Sonar – a visual representation of your online conversation." To be sure, more and more people are using such services to aggregated the news - as Brian Kelly says, who needs Rupert Murdoch? On the other hand, it's better to get some perspective and comment on your forwarded link (as in this newsletter), isn't it? "it has been suggested that 'Twitter, like blogging, needs an edge, a voice, a riskiness'" - that's my feeling, and why the automated systems I think will in the end prove less than satisfactory.
[Link] [Comment][Tags: Twitter, Personalization, Web Logs, Visualization, Newsletters]
Why the University System, as We Know It, Won’t Last …. and What’s Coming Next
Dan Colman,
Open Culture, May 14, 2012.
Dan Colman points to two trends that, to him, signal the end of the university system as we know it:
- First, Silicon Valley is finally focusing on e-learning. Udacity, Coursera, Kahn Academy, EdX — they’re all looking to lift e-learning out of a long period of stagnation.
- Second, paying for a college education is getting unsustainable - as noted by the New York Times this weekend and Planet Money in audio.
"And then," he writes, "you consider this. Many universities seem indifferent to the difficulties students face, if they’re not intentionally exacerbating the problem."
[Link] [Comment][Tags: Video, Silicon Valley, Online Learning, Audio]
Ed Radio Show Notes, May 14, 2012
May 14, 2012: I began the day with a selection from a choir I heard at the Janni Kirikus in Tallinn, Estonia, Les Voix Boréales, from Laval, Quebec:
Song of the Spirit, Medley from Sister Act, Fendex Les Bois, Happy Land, Ava Maria, Stand Together, Clap to Joy, Watane, When I Sing, Belleville Rendez-Vous, Harmonium
Also, Les Petites Chanteurs de Laval: Let Us Go In Peace, Eye of the Tiger
The Avengers on a Budget (bleep warning)
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